“No ... no!” The passionate protest was addressed to herself as much as to him.  “Listen, Roy.  I’ve never hated saying anything more—­but it’s true.  You said, last time,—­’Why pretend?’ And that struck home.  I knew I had been pretending hard—­because I wanted to—­for more than a week.  You made me realise ... one couldn’t go on at it all one’s married life.—­But, my dear, what a wretch I am!  You’re not fit....”

“Oh, I’m just wobbly ... stupid,” he muttered, half dazed, as she pressed him down into a corner of the Chesterfield.

“Poor old boy.  When you’ve had some tea, you’ll be able to face things.”

He said nothing; merely leaned back against the cushion and closed his eyes—­part of him rebelling furiously against her quiet yet summary proceedings—­while she attended to the sputtering kettle.

How prosaic, after all, are even the great moments of life!  They had been ardent lovers.  They had come to the parting of the ways.  But a kettle on the boil would wait for no man; and, till the body was served, the troubles of the heart must stand aside.

She drew the table nearer to him; carefully poured out tea; carefully avoided his eyes.  And—­in the intervals between her mechanical occupations—­she told him as much of the truth as she felt he could bear to hear, or she to speak.  Among other things, unavoidably, she explained how—­and through whom—­her mother had come to know about their reservation——­

“That young sweep!” Roy muttered, so suddenly half-alert and fierce that amused tenderness tripped up her studied composure.

“You’d go for him now, just the same, I believe!”

“I would—­and a bit extra.  Because—­of you.”

She sighed.  “Oh yes, it was a mauvais quart d’heure of the first order.  And coming on the top of your crushing letter——­”

He captured her hand.  Their eyes met—­and softened.

“No, Roy,” she said, gently but inexorably releasing her fingers.  “We’ve got to keep our heads to-day, somehow.”

“Has yours so completely taken command of affairs?”

“I’m afraid—­it has.”

“Yet—­you stood up to your mother?”

“Oh, I did—­as I’ve never done yet.  But afterwards I realised—­it was only skin deep.  She said ... things I can’t repeat; but equally ...  I can’t forget; things about ... possible children....”

The blood flamed in Roy’s sallow face.  “Confound her!  What does she know about possible children?”

“More than I do, I suppose,” Rose admitted, with a pathetic half smile.  “Anyway, after that, she refused to countenance the engagement—­the wedding——­”

Roy sat suddenly forward, scorn and anger in his eyes.

“Refused——!  After the infernal fuss she made over me, because my father happened to have a title and a garden.  And now——­” his hand closed on the edge of the table.  “I’m considered a pariah—­am I?—­simply on account of my lovely little mother—­the guardian angel of us all!”